Look, World of Warcraft still boasts a bigger population than some small countries. But there's been some shrinkage in recent months. Could the Force be a reason for the dip in subscribers?

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Blizzard's finally saying that it might be. After previously making vague statments that intimated the launch of the EA/BioWare massive multiplayer game barely affected them, Senior WoW producer John Lagrave tells Eurogamer that a drop from 11.1 million to 10.3 million over three months might be "attributable" to The Old Republic.

"Of course people are trying Star Wars - our development team are trying Star Wars! I'm one of the few people who's still playing it actually, but yeah we've seen a dip in subs. It certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic, but it's also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria, so it's not surprising."

Lagrave also waves off any speculation that WoW will be switch to a full free-to-play model anytime soon but says that Blizzard may extend the free trial to a higher level in the future.